


Raclette

by JauntyHako



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Everyone is cold and miserable and then warm and happy, Jack still pretends that his identity is a secret, Kisses, New Year's Eve, Other, Reader-Insert, even if you're just freezing your ass off, genderneutral reader, gratuitous use of timezones, no drinking while on duty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9137929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JauntyHako/pseuds/JauntyHako
Summary: The Overwatch team is forced to spend their New Year's in a tiny, cold safehouse. Reinhardt has just the thing to cheer everyone up.





	

The team all had different ideas of what to do for New Year’s Eve, rather than sit in a cold cottage far away from anyone’s home, far removed from civilisation. The heat was supposed to be working, but abandoned for nearly six years, the old Overwatch safehouse has seen better days and the central heating was the first to give out. It was a nasty surprise to arrive to, having to break open the ice in the toilet bowl and making various impromptu repairs, but by now everyone has gotten used to it, in a quiet, miserable way.

They’re all sitting in their own corners, doing their own thing, counting the seconds to when they’ll be free of this hell hole, and bemoaning the fact that this is, with a few scattered exceptions, the worst New Year’s they ever had.

Reinhardt is the first to break under the pressure of a horrible holiday.

“This will not do.” he says and stands up with the single-minded passion of a man who will not let his family be sad on a day that should be about joy and hope. He marches toward the kitchen, followed by half a dozen pairs of eyes who can be bothered to take a break from brooding. What he returns with is a tabletop grill.

“My family did this every year on _Silvester_.” he explains as he plugs the device in. It heats up slowly, and the warmth more than Reinhardt’s sudden enthusiasm sways the team towards that idea he’s having.

“Angela insists it’s a Swiss tradition but she is not here so I will tell you that it is a thing we do at home. We don’t have the proper cheese, but _Raclette_ is all about improvising.”

Arm full after arm full he carries what seems to be the entire content of the larder into the living room and around the grill. It’s an utterly chaotic mixture of ingredients. Smoked champignons next to a glass of mixed pickles, some minced meat and various cans of vegetables and at least three different sorts of tomatoes. Fish, a variety of cheese, and ingredients you don’t even recognise, complement it all. Once he has finished he takes the little pans and forces one on every one in the room, like it or not. Mei is the first victim, having crowded close to the grill to leach some of its warmth after giving her coat to Hana who’s tinkering with the broken TV and takes the pan seemingly without knowing or caring for its purpose. She puts it aside with the screwdriver and other assorted tools. Aleksandra has caught Reinhardt’s enthusiasm, knowing when someone is trying to instill morale and supporting the effort with everything she has. When Genji reminds everyone that he can’t really enjoy food anymore, she claps him on the shoulder and says: “Just as well, this will probably taste awful.”

He laughs and accepts the pan and hands one to Hanzo, who takes it with a frown. He seems to regret shaving half his head recently as he’s wearing one of Fareeha’s spare beanies and grousing over the temperature in muffled Japanese he thinks no one but his brother understands. Fareeha herself knows about the tradition of Raclette, remembering it from celebrating New Year’s at the multicultural Overwatch headquarters. She reminisces with Jesse about the crazy combinations they tried out and subsequently made their parents (or rather, their commanding officers) eat.

Satya eyes the ingredients with the look of someone who’s mentally categorising them under at least half a dozen systems, but not, as you curiously note, with downright dejection. It seems everyone could use a little diversion.

By the time Reinhardt has reached you, the grill has heated up sufficiently and everyone’s started making up their own perfect Raclette.

“Jesse, that’s disgusting.” Hana says, barely looking up from her work. Half the team agrees that just piling meat into the pan and submersing it in half a bottle of garlic sauce should be illegal, while the other half dares them to try it for themselves.

Within minutes the mood has changed, the doom and gloom turning into an impromptu house party, filled with laughter and friendly teasing.

Reinhardt disappears for a few minutes, to offer 76 to join them. It’s the worst kept secret on earth, but he has so far not divulged his identity, forcing everyone to pretend they don’t know he’s Jack Morrison. It’s a challenge and a half correcting to “seventy-six” from “Ja- I mean, uh”, but he appears to be none the wiser.

Reinhardt returns with the last pan and a dejected look that’s quickly swept off his face by the general good spirits.

Eventually smaller groups crowd together under the spare blankets, sharing body warmth and all the warm clothes they own, making a mess when the shuffling and accidental pushing leads to more than one pan upended on a pair of pants or a shirt. Genji laughs for almost ten minutes straight when a mishap with his pan leads to Hanzo having a decidedly penis shaped stain on his new jacket. He does not yet know that Hanzo’s newfound will to live includes a mischievous streak that will leave him by morning with a dick drawn on his face plate with permanent marker.

“Ah, I wish we had music.” Aleksandra says, rubbing her stomach in content drowsiness after half a dozen pans.

Precisely in that moment, and you wouldn’t be surprised to learn she’s just been waiting for her cue, Hana lets out a shout of triumph and the small TV springs to life. No one believed her when she said she could repair it, stating that everything is “basically a less complicated MEKA”, and now stand corrected. They let her know with varying degrees of sheepishness, not aided by her smug grin and her order to heap more praise on her amazing mechanical skills.

The right channel is quickly found and just in time for the team to cuddle up together for Lúcio’s live show. You’re squeezed between Jesse on one side and Fareeha on the other, the heat from the grill warming your face, just as surely as they warm the rest of you.

Lúcio’s song ends and makes way for the profound silence only thirty thousand people can make, all focused on their idol. He lets the anticipation build, looks over the masses like a benevolent king, looking regal and still somehow innocent clad in all white.

Seconds ago the concert hall was ecstatic, energetic, spirited. Dancing until they were too exhausted to go on, but now they are still, wait with bated breath for his words.

“This was one hell of a year.” Lúcio says eventually, walking slowly up and down the stage. Somehow he makes it feel like he’s talking to you personally, like despite thousands of people in live attendance and cameras recording this event for millions more, he and you are the only two people who matter. You know everyone with you has that same sensation.

“A lot of bad shit happened.” he continues. “Vishkar was only the tip of the iceberg. This year we got a taste of all the ruin and destruction our parents tried to protect us from. Some people got more than a taste.” And then he says something in Russian that makes Aleksandra wipe away tears. She mutters the sentiment back towards the screen. “I know it looks like from this point it’s only going to get worse. But I know better. Because, people, I know you. I’ve seen what you’re capable of, what you can achieve when you work together. When you work with passion!”  
The crowd cheers and he makes them shout again, urges them to do it louder and louder. The camera switches to the public viewing places all around the world. Just outside the concert hall, fireworks already in the air.

In Kuwait City, where it’s already five o’clock in the morning, and still thousands have stayed up to watch Lúcio play for them. Adelaide, where people are already twelve hours into the new year, celebrating it again to be able to do it with him. San Francisco, which still has six hours to go, Buenos Aires, which is just an hour behind and in the same timezone as you are.  
All across the world the people watch and cheer, and scream to the heavens louder than any firework could.

After a last resounding shout that rattles the ceiling, the audience falls silent again. On the big screen behind Lúcio the countdown starts. Thirty seconds.

“You amaze me, people. Every time I go out there and hear about the monumental things you accomplish, the struggles you overcome, I’m in awe. This next year you’re going to blow me away, I just know it.”

Ten seconds and Lúcio leads the chant down to zero, signing it in _Libras_ , the Brazilian sign language.

Just before he reaches zero he says, in a voice so soft and melodious it seems to carry across the air in a dance: “I love you.”  
The world erupts in colour and noise. People laugh, hug and kiss each other, swaying to the song he plays, a new composition starting low and slow and continuously gaining speed.

They show the fireworks over the concert hall and Lúcio himself, captured by the music and smiling with his eyes closed.

The camera pans to the audience and snaps a few close-ups.

The team hollers as they recognise just who is standing in the front row.

“That’s Emily and Lena!” Fareeha says, shaking you and, by extension, everyone next to you. “Emily and Lena are on TV.”  
They kiss and whoever is in charge of special effects at that TV station is evidently as smitten with the two as their closest friends are, because several hearts and stars pop up on the screen around them. Lena leans away a little, grins to the camera and gives her trademark salute. You’ve no doubt she counts on all of you watching and thinks of you as she celebrates.

As the songs get more energetic a few get up to dance, while others are content to sit back and watch. No one is surprised when Genji performs something that probably counts as softcore pornography, but Hanzo floors everyone when he, after some urging from his brother, joins in.

You laugh and joke with the rest until your eyes fall on the unused pan underneath the others. You tell Reinhardt not to wait for you and grab two glasses and one of the bottles of the non-alcoholic champagne the team brought on this mission, in case they’d still be on duty come New Year’s Eve.

 

76 keeps watch in the small hallway of the cottage, still as a ice sculpture and likely as cold. You don’t know how he bears it, sitting for hours in the cold. Even the living room, heated up by all of you and the grill, is still a few degrees below comfort. In here it’s downright freezing, but he doesn’t shift, doesn’t rub warmth into his arms. Just sits there, staring out of the window, rifle across his knees.

“You know.” you say as you approach, generously pretending not to notice that you startled him into half a heart attack. “No one would rip your head off if you joined us for a spell.”

He grunts, eyes the glass of champagne you practically shove into his face. He doesn’t decline, but he makes no move to reach out and take it either.

“At least share a glass with me.” you say and, evidently realising he’s not getting out of this, he takes it. The blanket around your shoulders is large enough for the both of you and it speaks for how cold he must really be when he doesn’t protest you wrapping half of it around his shoulders.

And that’s how you sit for a while, watching the snow fall outside, the occasional light spark as far away the city prepares for midnight.

“You shouldn’t pity me.” he says, sounding as if everytime he speaks he has to remind himself how. You do the math in your head. In a few hours it will be six years since Overwatch has been disbanded. Jack Morrison ‘died’ a year before that and has been off the grid ever since. Seven years without a friend to talk to. It’s no surprise he doesn’t know how to integrate himself into this group. Unlike Hanzo, he doesn’t have a brother who is determined to pull him out of his shell. You will have to do.

“I can if I want to.” you say, with a teasing edge that you think makes him smile. It’s hard to tell with the mask. “But I’m not. J- Seventy-six, you are a member of my team. That’s not going to change no matter how much you brood in your own corner.”  
“I don’t brood.”  
“Uh-huh.”

Once again you fall into silence, as comfortable as the last. You can tell he’s deep in thoughts, swirling the champagne in his glass as if he could read it like tea leaves. From the next room come the sounds of a group of people who barely know each other and have decided that a round of charades is the best way to rectify that. You give it five minutes before something breaks.

“Last year.” he says. “I spent my New Year’s tied to the driver’s seat of a car that was being remotely driven over a bridge.”

He swirls the champagne again. “I pissed off some organised crime ring or another. Don’t really remember. All I know was that the water was pissing cold and I remember thinking, while I tried to free myself, that I’ll probably be the first dead guy of the year.”

He takes a deep breath and then reaches up and undoes the clasps of his mask and visor. He pulls it free and downs the glass of champagne in one go, wordlessly holding it out for you to refill.

“I remember not caring.” he says. “I remember feeling as if I was dead already. I wasn’t doing anything, nothing of substance. Just sort of drifting. But I knew that no matter what, I had the worst already behind me.”

He lost his credibility, his fame, his job and purpose, and his friends in one burst of fire. His home burned down, left a few scars for him to pick at and little else. Forced to go on, like a ghost who couldn’t find his way into the afterlife.

He looks at you, clear blue eyes piercing and full of emotion he no longer bothers to hide.

“This is either the best or worst thing to happen to me.” he says, gesturing at the cottage, the new team, the new place he might carve for himself in this life.

“Might be both.” you offer and now he does laugh.

“Might be.” he agrees. Any follow up is interrupted by the second countdown this evening, this time in your own timezone. The chorus is hardly the most harmonious, some out of breath from dancing or playing charades, others too shy to really join in and the rest trying to make up for it by being especially loud.

You count with them under your breath, don’t notice Jack leaning closer, eyes glued to your lips.

“Wanted to do this for a while.” he murmurs, pulling your attention towards him.

“Do what?”

He kisses you, close-mouthed but deep, giving you no time to react, no chance to push him away before he got to do this. Next door you hear cheering, more laughter. Something, predictably, breaks. But you can only think of Jack’s lips on yours, chapped and dry and much colder than they should be. That’s what you hold onto, as you pull him closer and into your arms, rubbing his back to warm him up.

He pulls away a little, breathless and blushing, doesn’t meet your eye.

“For good luck?” you ask, doubting this is really it. He shrugs, makes a motion as if he wants to kiss you again but pulls back at the last second. It falls to you to bridge the distance and you do, cupping his jaw, tracing the scar along his cheek as you press your lips against his.

When you part his free hand has found its way into your shirt and he leans his forehead against your shoulder.

“My name is Jack. But you knew that already.” he says, formally introducing himself after practically confessing his undying love on the spot. He wouldn’t have just kissed anyone. Not even for good luck.

“We all had … strong suspicions.” you say diplomatically, coaxing another laugh out of him.

“Thank you. For giving me time to do this in my own pace.”

“Anytime.” you say and kiss him for a third time. In about fifteen minutes Reinhardt will come into the hallway to check up on you and get the shock of a lifetime as he finds you making out on the bench by the door, speaking his astonishment loud enough to alert everyone else to this development.

The teasing remains friendly, the questions unintrusive. Every one of them has kissed someone they wouldn’t normally think of kissing before, and found the experience not entirely unfavourable. And that - an impromptu good luck kiss that got a little out of hand - is the story you’ll be going with. At least for a while.

  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> So, for the third year I've written a New Year's kiss precisely at midnight (so it counts as a real new year's kiss. Obviously.)  
> That means two things. One, I have no social life. And two ... no, actually it just means I have no social life.


End file.
